About Me

Having grown up an Air Force Brat, I've traveled my fair share.  By the time my dad retired from the air force when I was in the fourth grade, I had attended 9 different schools.  Adapting to new places and people was ingrained in me at an early age.  I learned early that there was no ONE way of being or doing anything and that anywhere I went I was sure to learn a new way to dress, play, speak and eat.  To balance all the moving I was lucky to have an Italian mother who brought us to her home town most summers.  I grew up knowing, for a few short months each year, that I did in fact belong somewhere and to something bigger than our mobile nuclear family.

A career in travel was a logical choice and for several years I lived in Switzerland, Italy and in various cities around the U.S.  My husband works for a major airline and so when I left the work force to raise my children I continued traveling with our airline benefits.

With small children at home my return to the working world saw my wings clipped....I stayed closer to home but still worked with exotic locations by working with imported Italian wines.

My husband's job now involves living on a remote island in the Pacific, and traveling to major Asian cities.  It wasn't an easy decision to leave our home and family behind but I decided to take a leap and follow my husband as he visits these Asian destinations.  This is my Odyssey: to take this marvelous journey to discover not only this part of the world but a little about myself as well.

My inspiration for the title of the blog comes from the poem by C.P. Cavafy:

ITHACA

"As you set out for Ithaca, hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.

Lestragonians Cyclops, angry Poseidon, don't be afraid of them.

You may never find things like that on your way,

As long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

As long as rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body,

Lestragonians Cyclops, angry Poseidon, you won't encounter them unless you bring them along with inside your soul,

Unless your soul sets them up in from of you.

Hope your road is a long one,

May there be many summer mornings, when with what pleasure,

What joy you enter harbors you see for the first time.

May you stop at Phoenician trading stations,

To buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind,

As many sensual perfumes as you can and may you visit many Egyptian cities,

To learn and go on learning from their scholars..

Keep Ithaca always in your mind,

Arriving there is what you've been destined for,

But don't hurry the journey at all,

Better it lasts for years so you're old by the time you reach the islands,

Wealthy with all you've gained on the way, not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey,

Without her, you wouldn't have set out,

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you,

Wise as you will have become so full of experience you'll have understood by then what these Ithacas mean."